Most of the people in the world population suffer from some sort of foot problems. Foot motion/gait problems reflect to soles, ankles, knees, hips, back, etc; that is why their treatment and prevention is particularly beneficial to the whole human well-being. An individual takes around 15 000-16 000 steps every day. The load on feet in sports is many times the weight of the body. For example, the ground force is about three times one's body weight while running and 7.5 times while playing basketball due to jumps and other irregular moves. Provided that the foot position is correct, the load divides evenly between the upper joints.
A common condition called pronation refers to inward (i.e. medial) roll of the foot (especially heel and arch), which turns into overpronation when the foot rolls too much. In contrast, oversupination is caused by too small inward roll. Both conditions easily cause pain, wear and even stress injuries in the feet and various body joints.
Different (arch) support insoles are available for correcting the foot position. They have been designed to support longitudinal medial and lateral arch but without separately glued wedges they do not actually correct foot position. Wedging is a time-consuming and expensive process. The obtained result depends on the person doing the task and still tends to be rather inaccurate. As another drawback, after gluing the wedges to the soles one cannot take a new mold without first removing the wedges.
Ready-made supports in the insoles do not generally provide a perfect match to anyone's feet, as people do not generally bear identical feet shape. Accordingly, many support insoles are ultimately deemed inconvenient due to their lousy fit. Only few of the people suffering from foot problems have had a chance to purchase insoles that alleviate at least part of the problems. Traditionally, custom-made shoes and insoles have been manufactured by professional shoemakers, physio-therapists, or podiatrists.
So far the associated purchase process has been rather time-consuming and costly. Measuring the feet and manufacturing the insoles requires expensive and specialized apparatuses, and yet the speed at which the manufacturing can take place is limited. Naturally, these circumstances increase the cost of custom-made insoles, as well, which makes them less affordable to people suffering from foot problems.
There is, therefore, a need for a solution that improves the overall process of ordering and manufacturing insoles, as well as for improvements in the manufacturing technology of insoles.